Accommodation Syndrome Model

When sexual abuse occurs children often act or behave in ways that are counterintuitive to what society believes they should behave. In 1983, Dr. Roland Summit developed the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome model to help others understand the many ways in which children react to sexual abuse. The model is broken down into 5 stages, the first two Secrecy and Helplessness are the preconditions to the occurrence of sexual abuse and the remaining three Entrapment and Accommodation, Delayed, Conflicted, and Unconvincing Disclosure, and the finally Retraction, are sequential contingencies which take on increasing variability and complexity (Summit, 1983).

Children are more than often sexually abused by someone they know and trust. On

Dr. Summit states on page 184, of the article The Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome. “If the child did not seek or did not receive immediate protective intervention, there is no further option to stop the abuse.” “The only healthy option left or the child is to learn to accept the situation and survive.” Children figure out ways to cope and accommodate in the worst circumstances. In her statement, Jane Doe provided many examples of Entrapment and Accommodation. On page 11, Jane Doe states “My father would come in our bedroom every night. He would climb up to the top bunk and get in bed. I would pretend I was sleep and never open my eyes. On page 12 of Jane Doe’s statement she states that “As she got older my father would tell me that he couldn’t keep coming in the room, that I would have to wait till my sister was asleep and get up and come in the living room.” “I do remember doing that a couple times and then it downed on me that if I didn’t that would me he couldn’t come in and abuse me. I was wrong; He just started coming back in the room. On page 15 Jane Doe stated, “I remember asking him could I go on top of him. He said oh you like it huh, but I just needed him to get off me because he was heavy. At that time I believed I was being abused or I had to do this because I had a bad report card and instead of getting a woopin I was being let off the hook and had to let him do this. “ On page 17 “I started realizing that if I switched sides w/sister in the tub he couldn’t close the shower curtain and still see me but that would not work.” Jane Doe also describes other ways she coped with the sexual abuse. On page 23 Jane Doe makes a statement about her diary. “That day I’d lost my main diary. It had all the abuse in it. It was Red. I wrote in it ever day and hid it.” On page 25 “When I was young if I got sick I would pretend I was not so that I could go to school and not